Eighty years to the day after his execution by the Nazis at Mont-Valérien Fort (near Paris), Armenian resistance fighter Missak Manouchian will enter the Panthéon on Wednesday, February 21, 2024, accompanied by his wife Mélinée, France Television reports.
Missak Manouchian is the first foreign and Communist resistance fighter to be buried at the Panthéon.
This is recognition from the French state, but also a tribute to all foreign resistance fighters who fought against Nazi oppression.
In Paris, around the monument, preparations are gathering pace, with rehearsals underway for the transfer of Manouchian's remains.
A survivor of the 1915–16 Armenian genocide, Manouchian he moved to France from an orphanage in Lebanon in 1925. He was active in communist Armenian literary circles.
During World War II, he became the military commissioner of FTP-MOI, a group consisting of European immigrants, including many Jews, in the Paris Region which carried out assassinations and bombings of Nazi targets. According to one author, the Manouchian group was the most active one of the French Resistance. Manouchian and many of his comrades were arrested in November 1943 and executed by the Nazis at Fort Mont-Valérien on 21 February 1944.
